CPAC Hub

Michelangelo Signorile interviewed former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed at CPAC on Friday and said that even though he believes the Republican party and every GOP candidate that will seek the nomination for president will be in favor of 'traditional marriage', he says a long sought after federal marriage amendment is dead in the water:

"Even if you passed a federal marriage amendment, I would assume it would grandfather in anyone who's been married, so I don't know. It was always a very difficult option. I don't think we ever got 50 votes in the U.S. Senate for that amendment. So, we always knew that the amendment was going to be very difficult to pass."

Reed added that trying to pass such an amendment would be "trying to put the genie back in the bottle."

Sarah Palin took a page from Ted Cruz's 'Green Eggs and Ham' playbook at CPAC and proved she's still got the kind of knack for vapid conservative showmanship that makes wingnuts get on their feet and cheer, the L.A. Times reports:

Unburdened by the rules that keep serious politicians tethered to serious messages, her task was to toss red meat to a ravenously appreciative conservative crowd Saturday at the closing session of the American Conservative Union's annual CPAC conference.

By my count, her speech got more standing ovations than the one delivered Friday by CPAC favorite Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who won the CPAC presidential straw poll.

Dr. Ben Carson - a "conservative hero" who compared gay marriage to NAMBLA and sex with animals and was subsequently forced to step down as a commencement speaker last year at Johns Hopkins University, despite his backpedaling attempts to apologize, took the stage at CPAC yesterday and said he would “continue to defy the PC police who have tried in many cases to shut me up," Right Wing Watch reports.

Added Carson: “Of course gay people should have the same rights as everyone else. But they don’t get extra rights, they don’t get to redefine marriage."

Paul won 31 percent of the vote (compared with the 25 percent he won last year), beating a crowded field of more than two dozen names, including a number of potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders. He crushed second-place finisher Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who came in with 11 percent.

Rounding out of the top finishers in the poll, which was voted on by 2,459 CPAC attendees, were former neurosurgen Ben Carson (9 percent) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (8 percent).

Paul's father Ron and Mitt Romney have been the top picks in the CPAC straw polls since 2007.

At a CPAC panel sponsored by Focus on the Family, right wing talk show host Michael Medved called it a "liberal lie" that some states ban gay marriage, Right Wing Watch reports:

"Medved seemed to be citing the Religious Right talking point that marriage bans aren’t discriminatory since a gay person could marry someone of the opposite sex, which is the same arguments once made by opponents of the legalization of interracial marriage."

In a speech at CPAC today, Oliver North accused Obama of treating service members like “laboratory rats in some radical social experiment” by repealing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' and said conservatives must fight marriage equality like abolitionists fought slavery, Right Wing Watch reports.

Said North.

"Some say that we must ignore social issues, like the definition of marriage and the sanctity of life, religious freedoms. I say those are not social issues. They are deeply moral and spiritual issues and they should be a part of America's elections. In the 1850's, a political party was born on the idea of a great moral issue - human bondage, the abolition of slavery in America. If we as conservatives cease to be a place where people of faith and those who believe in strong moral values can come, we will cease to be a political force in America.”